Investigation into police contact during arrest of teenager – West Yorkshire Police, August 2023

In August 2023, West Yorkshire Police (WYP) officers were called to Leeds city centre to a disturbance involving a teenage girl and officers made the decision to take her back home, rather than make an arrest.

Once back at the home address, the evidence suggested a potentially homophobic comment was made by the girl, which the officer believed was directed towards her. The evidence identified that the comment made was not as was reported on the short clip which appeared on social media.  As a result, the officer took the decision to arrest the girl in relation to this offence.

We began an independent investigation following a voluntary referral from WYP linked to a complaint made following the detention of the girl.

Video footage showing part of the arrest was shared widely on social media at the time and showed the girl being arrested and being led from a house by officers.

As part of our enquiries, our investigators obtained accounts from the officers involved and reviewed body worn video footage. We also analysed and reviewed police radio recordings and police incident logs.

We considered the officer’s actions against local and national policy, procedures and guidance.

Our investigation looked at one of the officer’s actions and interactions with the girl on the night to determine whether they were appropriate and proportionate in line with approved police policies and training.

We concluded that WYP officers at the address on the whole did attempt to de-escalate the situation and the level of force used appeared to have been appropriate in the circumstances.

However, we did find that some of the language used by one of the officers towards the girl was inappropriate and was not conducive to de-escalating the situation.

Our investigation found that the officer did not have a case to answer for misconduct or gross misconduct. However, we decided that it would be appropriate for the officer to undertake reflective practice – to reflect and learn from the incident to prevent any issues identified from re-occurring, as their actions fell short of the expectations of the public and the police service as set out in the Code of Ethics.

An officer reflecting on their actions is a formal process reflected in legislation. The reflective practice review process consists of a fact-finding stage and a discussion stage, followed by the production of a reflective review development report. The discussion must include:

• a discussion of the practice requiring improvement and related circumstances that have been identified, and
• the identification of key lessons to be learnt by the participating officer, line management or police force concerned, to address the matter and prevent a reoccurrence of the matter.

Our investigation looked at the whole picture of the incident and we decided the officer should now work with their supervisor to reflect, learn and improve from what occurred, to prevent this from happening again.

We also felt that a letter of apology should be sent to the girl and the family in attempt to remedy any dissatisfaction. The force agreed with this suggestion and have written to the family.

At the end of our investigation our report was shared with West Yorkshire Police who agreed with our findings.

We carefully considered whether there were any learning opportunities arising from the investigation. We make learning recommendations to improve policing and public confidence in the police complaints system and prevent a recurrence of similar incidents.

In this case, the investigation did not identify any organisational learning